Tuesday, March 23, 2010

ACORN To Disband

According to various news sources, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has announced that they will formally disband on April 1st, due to funding issues. This comes six months after conservative activists released doctored videos of low level employees offering questionable advice (although the advice they had given is presumed to be taken out of context because of the conservative activists and their employer's refusal to release complete videos). Those events led to the U.S. Congress voting to prohibit ACORN from receiving federal funding, and the U.S. Census Bureau ending its partnership with the group, even though a federal judge ruled that Congress' act to eliminate funding for the group was unconstitutional. Regardless of the falsifications of information by conservative activists, the damage was already done and the organizations public image plummeted as a result of round the clock news coverage echoing talking points from pundits at Fox News.

Conservatives, on the other hand, don't believe news that ACORN is disbanding, and instead takes the position that the group is changing their name, but will conduct business as usual under different names, although these new organizations conservatives claim to be ACORN proxies are unaffiliated with the troubled organization. It appears conservatives have problem with these groups because they offer identical services to ACORN, and so by default, these groups are ACORN.

ACORN released this statement regarding their closing: "ACORN has faced a series of well-orchestrated, relentless, well-funded right wing attacks."

Hannah Giles, the whore in the conservative smear tapes, made a statement on Breitbart's propaganda homepage, Big Journalism, claiming that ACORN was a "legalized, and government supported, mafia."

"You’ve seen the product of the actions taken by James O’Keefe and me last summer."

First of all Hannah, the product you and O'Keefe offered was a one that would not hold legal water when the tape was deemed to have undergone "heavy editing," with the damning statements made by ACORN employees to have been taken out of context to appear more sinister. I wonder if what you had done - essentially destroying a company with libelous videotapes - carries a criminal offense (in addition to your illegal videotaping)...